Greetings, I currently own and use a Corsair H50, which does a pretty good job at keeping my i7-870 at bay. I recently came into owning a Noctua NH-D14 and was wondering which one would you guys recommend using.

@OP
The only corsair aio liquid coolers which are equal to or better than d14 are h80(i) and h100(i). If you're going with the d14, make sure you have enough clearance and lowprofile memory, or headaches will ensue, I guarantee it

Getting a cpu from Aigo after he's had his way with it is like dating an ex-girlfriend of Ron Jeremy...its been so used and abused by this point that you'd be lucky if that LGA1366 chip would actually fit into a LGA2011 board

Obviously there are a lot of variables.
1. You're using two GT's in push pull, that obviously makes some difference compared to one stock fan.
2. Are you also using non stock thermal paste? That can account for another couple degrees of difference.
3. Legitreviews is using an open air bench instead of a highly actively cooled HAFX
4. Ambient temperature in your room may be different than in the review.
5. i7 980X is not i7 920. 980X is Gulftown, 920 is Nehalem. They also have different stock voltages, stock clock speeds, overclockability and so on - it's not a fair comparison.
6. Processors of the same model always have some differences in temperature per clock and per voltage. This is why a fair comparison between coolers is made only when testing on the exact same chip.

I have owned both on an i7 920. I originally had an H50 for the coolness factor, when i decided to try out a D14 a couple of years later i reached one conclusion: I should have bought the D14 in the first place!

The D14 absolutely destroys the H50 in both cooling capability and silence. Plus theres one less thing that can break (water pump). Mine never broke but its still a factor worth thinking about.

Getting a cpu from Aigo after he's had his way with it is like dating an ex-girlfriend of Ron Jeremy...its been so used and abused by this point that you'd be lucky if that LGA1366 chip would actually fit into a LGA2011 board

Getting a cpu from Aigo after he's had his way with it is like dating an ex-girlfriend of Ron Jeremy...its been so used and abused by this point that you'd be lucky if that LGA1366 chip would actually fit into a LGA2011 board

I have used the H50 in a few builds and I like it but the H60 is a better unit now. Get the H60 over the H50. Having said that I doubt even the H60 can match the NH-D14. To match the NH-D14 you are going to need to step up to the H80 or H100 I'm guessing and even then I'm not sure they could match it when all fans are fully attached to the NH-D14.

I've been saying it for years, while all those self-enclosed systems are very cool to own (i.e., cheap watercooling is affordable without needing a custom built loop), they look very clean/nice, and they work a lot better for those who want fancy ram with tall heatsinks, are ideal for smaller cases like Lian-Li 354A, when it comes to performance vs. noise levels, they will get outperformed by high-end heatsinks like the Thermalright Archon / SB-E, Thermalright Silver Arrow / SB-E, NH-D14, Phanteks PH-TC14PE.

^ Thermalright uses good TY-140/150 fans that even at full blast are very quiet. Even an H80 cannot compete with that level of noise with stock fans, even if it delivers similar performance at full blast.

The 3 best performing AIO kits are Corsair H80/100 (and their i series) and Antec 920 H2O. Not a single one of those can deliver the same level of performance vs. noise characteristics as something like an NH-D14 with stock fans.

The Corsair H80/100 will outperform the top 5 air coolers at high fan speeds (maybe medium for H100) but they won't be as quiet without having to go out and get very expensive quiet case fans like Noiseblockers, Scythe Gentle Typhoons AP-15s or the new E-Loop Bionics.

The other awesome perk of the NH-D14 is that you get lifetime mounting support from Noctua for the cost of shipping. So that means in 5 years if there is a new socket and you want to reuse the NH-D14, just pay shipping and they'll send you a kit for Socket ABCDE.

I would sell the H50 and keep the NH-D14. There are also a lot of great RAM options now that no longer compromise mounting of these large coolers: